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CALLER: I bought him the books, too, for Christmas and he liked \u2019em and I just signed up for The Limbaugh Letter.<\/a> So it\u2019s pretty cool. But —<\/p>\nRUSH: Did you join the website, too?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No. I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Aw, come on, man. You can\u2019t do all that and not join the website. Here, we\u2019re gonna comp you. We\u2019re gonna make you a complimentary member at RushLimbaugh.com<\/a>, and that means you go out, you get the app… Do you have a phone? Do you have an iPhone?<\/p>\n CALLER: I just have an old flip phone. I don\u2019t have an iPhone yet, so…<\/p>\n RUSH: You have a flip phone?<\/p>\n CALLER: Yeah. I\u2019m calling on a land line \u2019cause my flip phone has bad quality because it\u2019s old.<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. The only people that use flip phones are criminals now. You know that?<\/p>\n CALLER: I know. Yeah, it\u2019s stupid, but…<\/p>\n RUSH: Okay, well, look, since I\u2019m in a good mood today we\u2019ll throw in an iPhone. I\u2019m gonna give you your choice, and this is before you\u2019ve even said what you called about. I have some iPhone Xs here, and I have some iPhone 8s and 8 Pluses. You know, I don\u2019t want to give the X short shrift. I mean, it is state of the art. But these 8s, especially the 8 Pluses, are awesome iPhones as well. So you can take your pick of whichever one that you would like. And then when you get that, you can go get the RushLimbaugh.com app<\/a>, after we comp you your one-year membership to Rush 24\/7. So which one…? Are you versed? Do you know what an 8 Plus is and an iPhone X?<\/p>\n RUSH: I wouldn\u2019t blame you. It\u2019s the one with Face ID, and it has… It is. It\u2019s state off the art. There\u2019s nothing like it, and it\u2019s two years ahead of any competitor up there to come up to Apple\u2019s speed on this. So it\u2019s a wise choice.<\/p>\n CALLER: Well, thank you. That means a lot to me.<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, you need to hang on after this so we get your address and stuff and get you the phone. We\u2019ll get it to you next week. It\u2019s unlocked. It has no SIM card in it. So it will work on any carrier. Now, what was it you called about from Port Huron, Michigan?<\/p>\n CALLER: Well, we\u2019re a very liberal town, unfortunately — a border town — and we\u2019ve been hurt by NAFTA. All our jobs kind of went away. But, you know, I voted for Trump \u2019cause he wanted to get rid of NAFTA, wanted to bring back jobs. You know, I\u2019m tired of looking at empty factories and stores and stuff. So I\u2019m kind of looking forward to that. But one of the things is we had the government shutdown again, and everyone keeps blaming Democrats and Republicans, but my real question is: Why are we in debt anyways and why can\u2019t we just make the government smaller so we can have less shutdowns and have a better budget?<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, you know, to answer this thoroughly would require an in-depth history lesson, which I would be more than happy to provide. But we don\u2019t have time for it here, so I need to give you the CliffsNotes version. The Founding Fathers recognized the threat. They knew what democracies go through. They know the pressures that hit democracies. And one of the early people around the founding of the country… I forget who. It\u2019s somebody famous. He said once the voters figure out that they can vote themselves money, then it\u2019s over. Now, it\u2019s not over immediately, but this is exactly why has happened. So you ask why is the government shutdown politics? Why are we in debt? It\u2019s because the job of members of Congress is to spend money.<\/p>\n CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n RUSH: I just turned 67. When I was your age, my grandfather and people his age were telling me that if we didn\u2019t get a handle as a nation on the national debt, that by the time I was ready to retire, I wouldn\u2019t be able to because the country would be in such dire financial straits. So I spent my early years thinking the national debt was something really important, and I saw it get bigger and bigger. I never heard anybody talk about reducing it, and I remembered people I trusted and loved telling me it was gonna be the end of the country.<\/p>\n Now, here I am 50 years later, and we\u2019re in the midst of an economic revival. The national debt is over $20 trillion. It was doubled in the eight years of Obama. We are running budget deficits every year, and I have yet to see any evidence that the national debt is causing us any harm at all. The theory is that if the government owes so much money that they have to borrow to pay money, the interest on that debt, and that that leaves less money in the private sector for people like you and me to borrow to buy homes, to buy cars, whatever we would need to borrow money for. That hasn\u2019t happened. I mean, the credit markets are wide open. Look at people\u2019s credit card debt.<\/p>\n CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n RUSH: Nobody\u2019s saying no when you want to borrow money, unless you\u2019re an absolute, total risk. So all these things — and I still don\u2019t have an answer for this. I can still find people, Greg, who sound today just like my grandfather did 50 years ago. “The national debt will be the end of the country!” Look, I wish the government was smaller, and I wish more Americans felt they didn\u2019t need it. I wish the government was smaller because I don\u2019t like it involving itself in as many aspects of people\u2019s lives as it can.<\/p>\n Because there\u2019s a certain political class that wants to do that, believing that you and I are incompetent and incapable. They want to manage our affairs, manage our lives for the sheer power of it. But, man, you get there, I guess, and the idea that you have all this money to spend and people love you after you spend it? It\u2019s gotta be one heck of an aphrodisiac. There have been people who try to make the government smaller. The Republicans balanced the budget one time, in 1995.<\/p>\n CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n RUSH: But, you know, in a theoretical sense, ideological sense, the government getting smaller and less intrusive is what it means, really. When the government “shuts down,” it really doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s just we go a few days without money to make certain transactions. But the government never shuts down. In fact, it would be great if it did.<\/p>\n CALLER: Well, I know that. But a lot of people my age when they hear “government shutdown,” they think, “Oh, we\u2019re gonna live in the streets and won\u2019t have any money!”<\/p>\n RUSH: Well, see, that\u2019s my point. Look at what people have been made to think: If government isn\u2019t there, life cannot go on. And that\u2019s absurd!<\/p>\n CALLER: I live just fine without government. You know, just like we\u2019re required to have health care. I can\u2019t work more than 19 hours a week because I have to have health care. But I\u2019m young and I\u2019m not sick. Same thing. You know, I just don\u2019t need government telling me what to do.<\/p>\n RUSH: What I would urge you to do is not change. We\u2019re gonna need as many people like you who learn this stuff at your age and then hold on to it and learn how to defend it, fight for it and all that, because you\u2019re gonna be up against people your age just like you described. They almost descend into a panic when they hear the government shutting down. They don\u2019t even know what it means. But they still get into some sort of great fear that something\u2019s not gonna be able to be available or happen or whatever. It\u2019s a great illustration of just how successfully the Big Government crowd has been in convincing people they can\u2019t live even a day without it.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/FB-002-011018-Rush-App-X23.jpg\")
<\/a>CALLER: I\u2019ve been listening, and I think I honestly want the X. I\u2019ve seen a lot of commercials on TV, and it seems pretty cool.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/FB-002-011618-Trump-Boom.jpg\")
RUSH: And this is how they get reelected. They build a bridge or a dam in the district or the state or they get an old folks\u2019 home built. Look, there are so many different reasons that are all qualified to explain this to you. But at the end of the day, the reason is because the people want it. The people are voting for people who do this, and, you know, I\u2019ll tell you something. You\u2019re 19.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>CALLER: Well, don\u2019t worry because, you know, last week you talked about the poop hole story where San Francisco had the poop piles and stuff. I shared it on Facebook, and my Facebook got shut down a couple hours later, and I still can\u2019t… I\u2019m banned from it for showing that post of yours. So it\u2019s —<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/FB-002-012618-Fakebook-1.jpg\")
CALLER: Exactly. I\u2019m happy I\u2019m not on Facebook anymore. You know what? I\u2019ve had enough people attacking me and then Facebook going after me. They do this a lot. They\u2019ll censor my posts. A lot of them are yours. They\u2019ll censor them and say we have to have approval.<\/p>\n